Immortality Is the Suck (27 page)

184

A. M. Riley

“He probably couldn't,” I reasoned. “If another person or persons are

involved, he might not be at liberty. Remember Alli?”

Okay, reminding Peter of the one person he had been jealous of in our

decade-and-a-half-long friendship was partially intentional. I admit it.

Alli had been the undercover ATF agent who had posed as my old lady

while we were infiltrating the Mongols. We lived together, rode together. Went

to parties together. And there had been a couple of times when circumstances

had demanded that we have sex together. I'd bet that she hated it more than I

did, but I had had to keep her identity a secret from everyone. Even Peter, who

got to find out by seeing us one night when he and Stan had been called to an

Angels/Mongols homicide scene.

“Her vest said 'Property of Snake,'” he said. I'd managed to meet him in a

hole in the wall cop bar where we were unlikely to be seen by OMG.

“It's part of the cover. After awhile they'd get suspicious if they didn't see

me bringing a girl around. And if Alli and I didn't pretend we're married, they'd

still expect me to go for the wings.” Different color wings on the Mongol vest

denoted different sexual accomplishments. None of them pretty. “The wives wear

the 'property of' patches so they won't get hit on by other bikers.”

“You pretend you're married?” Peter's face was flushed. He was breathing

through his nose. I didn't know what to think of his reaction.

“Well, yes? We live together.”

“You have sex?”

I can't lie to Peter. Oh, believe me, if I could, I would. But there's no use in

trying. “Yes.”

I've never seen Peter so still. I don't think he's breathing. And then,

suddenly, he's up and out of the booth, throwing money on the table and

marching, with long strides, out of the bar.

In the parking lot, I had to hammer on his closed car window for a while

before he'd roll it down.

Immortality is the Suck

185

“Peter, it's work.”

“Nice work, if you can get it,” he said. “Banging a young brunette with big

bazooms.”

“Jesus Christ, she's a professional, Peter, Not just some broad with big tits.”

“So, it's more than sex. You like her.”

“No! I mean, it's not like I want to.”

He's got his eyes shut and seems to be suffering from shooting pains in his

head. “I can't handle this,” he said, hands gripping the steering wheel so tight

his knuckles are white.

“What do you mean by that?”

He shook his head. I had a very bad feeling I knew exactly what he meant

and I started to panic. “How can I fix this?”

He nodded. Licked his lips. “Don't do it again.”

“The…the… you mean, don't have…”

“Ever. Never again,” said Peter. “I can't handle it.”

“Okay.”

He looked up at me then, a little sheepish but a lot relieved. “Promise?”

How does he still trust me? But the fact that he does is more compelling

than any threats of punishment could be. “I promise,” I said.

“Funny thing,” said Peter, looking angry. “Stan has never lied or kept

secrets from me. Why is that, do you suppose?”

“At least I wasn't using Alli to get back at someone.”

“I'm not using Jonathan,” snapped Peter. “He's uncomplicated and

forthright. He has no secrets. As you so aptly observed, he's a welcome relief.”

“How can he have secrets? He's fucking twelve or thereabouts!”

Peter's lower lip thrust out just like a pugnacious bulldog's. “If I was

supposed to know about Stan's assignment, he would have told me. You may

186

A. M. Riley

have compromised him by coming here. Why didn't you leave town when I told

you to?”

“I don't run away. And…and I was worried about
you
, Peter.”

“I've been fine, obviously,” said Peter. “Don't put your selfish decisions off

on me, Adam.”

I stood, pissed off and hurting all over. “You're right. What was I thinking?

Oh, right, that the whole city of Los Angeles might be in danger?”

“And you're just an innocent bystander. Oh, wait, where have I heard that

before?”

“I haven't
done
anything, Peter. Why can't you believe me?”

“Do you still eat blood?” And, at my expression, “Great. Terrific. Where are

you getting it?”

“Volunteers,” I said.

“What do you mean, volunteers?”

“Some people like being bitten. It's like kinky sex.”

His eyes narrowed. “Good for you. I was afraid you were
using
people.”

“Well, I've warned you. It's on your head now if the whole city winds up

some kind of flesh-eating zombies, or vampires or whatever. I'll get out of your

hair now. Sorry I interrupted your 'date.'”

“We're seeing each other tomorrow, as it happens,” said Peter, and he had

an unfamiliar, waspish tone to his voice. “So you don't need to worry about it.”

I ran my hands through my hair, feeling old and fat and grubby. And a

touch homicidal. “Fine.”

Peter stood too. “Fine,” he said.

“I know my way out,” I said.

He crossed his arms. “Good.”

“So I'll just be going.”

Immortality is the Suck

187

“You do that.” He didn't seem about to cave. Why should he when the

choice was yours truly or hot monkey sex with a kid half my age and with twice

my IQ? Why could he possibly want me to stay?

So I split.

I was halfway up Wilshire Boulevard before it really started to burn. I

should have been on the way to Parker Center, to warn the LAPD. I should

have been ringing up Alli, and Bert, and the rest of my old ATF crew, to warn

them. I should have been keeping my ass covered and my profile low, but all I

could think about was Peter fucking some college boy and the way he'd looked

at me when I'd walked out.

Like he didn't give a damn.

188

A. M. Riley

Chapter Nineteen

I got an idea and turned on Eleventh heading to Saint Monica's.

The chapel was almost always open for one reason or another. I could

hear the choir practicing in there and I just stepped through the big carved

double-wide doors. I fully expected to be thrown back.

Nothing happened, not even a ripple. There was a holy water font in the

wall. I touched it. Nothing.

I went and sat down in a pew and listened to the choir practicing for a

while. A priest went by. I assumed he was a priest, at least, because he had

one of those priestly collars on.

“Evening, Father,” I said. It came out a little snarly, I think.

He hesitated. He probably had a duty roster for the week that'd choke a

horse, but it was his job to minister to lost souls, right? And I can just imagine

the expression I was wearing; I was so pissed off about so many things, I

probably looked like the poster child for lost souls.

“Just listening to the music,” I told him.

“You should come on Sunday and hear them,” he said.

I wanted to tell him that his holy water was broken, or fake, or something.

I wanted to tell him that I suspected his church was no longer on holy ground.

I wanted somebody else to feel disillusioned, like the only thing they counted

on was gone.

God damn it. Only, apparently, God wasn't interested.

All of a sudden I was mad as hell and I had to get out of there before I

broke something. Back on my bike, I cruised around the block, in low gear.

Immortality is the Suck

189

Facing the church property was the park where the old men lawn bowl and the

homeless and runaways sit at picnic tables until the LAPD come and make

them move on. So the citizens will think the city is doing something about the

“problem.”

They think a few homeless guys are a problem? Wait until they see

Ozone's army.

And that's when I noticed one of the men who lay around the trees. Most

of the homeless will spread a coat or a blanket of some sort out on the ground,

their clothes stuffed with newspapers and their belongings under their heads.

This guy lay on the ground next to another man. He wore a lightweight T-

shirt, his weathered, bony arms sticking out, sandals on his feet. He seemed to

be having an animated, cheerful conversation with the man who lay opposite

him, and then he seemed to be making out with the man.

You know, in all my years on the streets of Los Angeles, I've never seen

two homeless guys making out in a park.

I parked my bike and jogged across the grass. “Hey.” I grabbed the guy's

shoulder and wasn't very surprised when he reared back and showed me a

demon's face with wolf eyes and a fanged mouth covered with his buddy's

blood.

He hissed and howled as I dragged him to the men's room, into a stall,

and shoved him up against the wall.

“Who did this to you?”

The transformation doesn't seem to really change people much, but my

injured knee had healed. It stood to reason that a man whose mind had been

damaged might be healed as well.

Yellowed eyeballs, lower lids pinkish. Olive brown pupils rolled as he

sought a means of escape from where I held him. He tried an ugly smile. “I

dunno what you mean.”

Maybe he was just stupid.

190

A. M. Riley

“You can't eat people,” I told him, giving him a shake that knocked his

head against the metal stall walls and made them rattle. “I can't let you go out

there again and eat people, man.”

He started to whimper and claw at my hand. He was pretty strong for a

skeletal man, but I attributed that to the vampirism. It did seem that one

brought one's relative strength to the transformation, though. So I would have

been able to handle this piece of garbage before and was able to now.

“I'm hungry,” he said. And he licked at the blood still left on his mouth.

If I let him go he'd just continue munching on his fellows. Maybe even a

few of those cute kids piling out of Saint Monica's after choir practice. I

couldn't bring him with me. I put my hands on either side of his head and

willed myself to break his neck.

He looked at me with those cockeyed, reddened, liverish ugly eyes and I

just couldn't do it.

Instead I shoved him hard, one more time, against the wall, and said.

“Don't, okay? Find another source. There's a blood bank down on Fourth

Street, maybe they'll give you some HIV blood for free.”

“Yeah?”

Jesus. Even demonic possession couldn't cure stupidity
. “Yeah, man. It's

like a soup kitchen.”

God knew if he believed me, understood, or even remembered a word of

our conversation after I released him and he went stumbling out into the night.

However, that little encounter brought me out of my post-Peter funk and set

me back on the beam. How long until we had an entire population of vampire

homeless people in our midst? It'd be like a bad old horror movie.

I hopped on my bike and headed toward the local police station. I had to

park it a couple blocks away because there were so many PD vehicles passing

in and out, it figured a chromed, custom Harley would attract at least one

check. And the bike was tagged as stolen currently.

Immortality is the Suck

191

Every needle on the security guard's equipment redlined when I walked

through the scan. There was the Smith & Wesson stuffed in the waistband of

my jeans. The derringer in the ankle holster just above my boot. The big

hunting knife on a chain that every Mongol soldier wore.

He just stared at me.

“Oops. Back in a second,” I said.

I had to go out to my bike and sequester my arms away in the tiny little

saddlebag then come back in.

The security guard raised an eyebrow, but merely waved the wand around

me and let me through. I had to stand in line for thirty minutes to get up to the

window fronted with bulletproof glass and tell the primly uniformed plump

woman sitting on the stool there that I had come to report a crime.

She passed me a form.

I tried to fill it out, but there were really no check boxes or spaces for

“vampires,” “bloodsuckers,” or “take over the world.” I settled for “kidnapping

and firearms.” And turned it back in.

She looked at it. Pursed her lips. “Just a moment,” she said, and slid her

plump butt off the stool.

I left. As quickly as I could without attracting too much attention.

As I passed the windowed wall of the station, heading east on Wilshire, I